Human resources and learning and development teams understand the value of an organisation’s network. It is their mission to instil the company culture to new recruits. They ensure that the company makes the most of its most valuable asset, its people.
HR teams are looking to the benefits of secure and social enterprise technology, such as HighQ Collaborate, to help them manage this process. It’s vital that organisations attract, keep and develop the best talent. Here are three ways HR teams can use HighQ Collaborate to help them make the most of their network.
Writing and sharing policies and employee handbooks
Employee handbooks and company policies are an essential part of on boarding new employees and reinforcing the rights of existing employees. Rather than issuing hard-copy documents that inevitably go out of date very quickly, this information can be stored in the collaboration site. As part of the on boarding process, all new staff can be invited into a read-only site which provides content broken down by tag for searching purpose. The benefit of providing electronic access to the handbook is threefold:
Save the trees. Handbooks and policies need to be updated and rewritten regularly to keep up with changes in the law or in the company. Working on an electronic handbook reduces the waste that comes from destroying out-of-date handbooks and reprinting new ones.
Create and share online. The core team can draft the handbook collaboratively in wikis and then share the handbook with colleagues via a blog post or create a downloadable PDF which is saved in the Files module.
One point of access. Everything related to the employee handbook and policies can be stored in one place which provides the business with a single location for everything they might need to know. Individuals can access up-to-date information whenever they need to without having to go through the HR department.
Managing the recruitment lifecycle
There are many facets to the recruitment lifecycle, from managing initial assessments to interviews to offer letters. Unless your processes are streamlined, recruitment efforts can be very demanding.
Creating a master recruitment site in HighQ Collaborate allows you to invite in the relevant parties, provide access to agreements and job specs and then allow members to upload CVs of their candidates. Other areas which can be managed via your enterprise collaboration platform include:
Creating job specs. Like the employee handbook, job specs can be co-authored in wikis by the relevant teams. These can be reviewed and approved by relevant parties, and tasks can be created to ensure this is done.
Manage recruitment agencies. HighQ Collaborate enables access to be granted to external users. This means it can be used as a single repository for recruitment agencies to see agreed benefits, culture and job specifications including salaries at will, rather than relying on email.
Create a recruitment system. It is possible to manage the overall recruitment process via iSheets, where HR teams can create a database for CV lists, shortlists and new joiners.
Organise interviews. Interviews can be planned and scheduled using the events modules, which relevant people can subscribe to and sync with their personal calendars.
Store associated documents. All documents can be stored within the Files module, where they can be easily found and accessed by anyone with permissions. Store document templates including offer letters and contracts, and save signed contracts securely.
On boarding new joiners
On boarding refers to the process through which new employees become socialized and acquire necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviours. This process helps them adapt to the company and allows new employees to become effective members of the team.
Once successful candidates accept an employment offer it may be between 4-12 weeks before they join. Before they set foot in the building they can gain access to a pre-joiner pack within HighQ Collaborate which helps them manage their own on boarding process so that they can get started straight away when they join. With the pre-joiner pack, they can:
Get to grips with the company. Using the employee handbook they can learn even more about the business, its values and culture. Start to understand the business processes and the organisation structure.
Get to know their team. New starters can introduce themselves to their new team which ultimately increases staff efficiencies and productivity and enables the staff to hit the ground running.
Get themselves set up. They can gain access to formal policies, read and sign the documents if necessary ready to get started on their first day. They can also put in requests to order any relevant technology or equipment so that it can be arranged before they start.
Once a new joiner has started they will already know a little more about their role and the team but by providing a collection of tasks to new joiners you can ensure they have access to all the relevant information, particular sections of the employee handbook, gaining access to relevant project and team sites.
The social functionality of HighQ Collaborate can be used for introductions and welcome messages in the form of microblogs to new starters, which will be broadcast to the company, which they and other colleagues can respond to in comments. This make the new starters feel part of the team from day one!
